So Soon As We Ourselves Can Force Our Way Through, And Collect The Horses The Best Way We Can, Yelling And Howling To One Another To Say How Many Each May Have Got, We Discover One Or Two Missing.

Then they have to be tracked; portions of loads are picked up here and there, and, in the course

Of an hour or more, the horse or horses are found, repacked, and on we push again, mostly for the open, though rough and stony spinifex ground, where at least we can see what is going on. These scrubs are really dreadful, and one's skin and clothes get torn and ripped in all directions. One of these mishaps occurred to-day.

In these scrubs are met nests of the building rat (Mus conditor). They form their nests with twigs and sticks to the height of four feet, the circumference being fifteen to twenty. The sticks are all lengths up to three feet, and up to an inch in diameter. Inside are chambers and galleries, while in the ground underneath are tunnels, which are carried to some distance from their citadel. They occur in many parts of Australia, and are occasionally met with on plains where few trees can be found. As a general rule, they frequent the country inhabited by the black oak (casuarina). They can live without water, but, at times, build so near a watercourse as to have their structures swept away by floods. Their flesh is very good eating.

In ten miles we had passed several little gullies, and reached the foot of other hills, where a few Australian pines were scattered here and there. These hills have a glistening, sheening, laminated appearance, caused by the vast quantities of mica which abounds in them. Their sides are furrowed and corrugated, and their upper portions almost bare rock. Time was lost here in unsuccessful searches for water, and we departed to another range, four or five miles farther on, and apparently higher; therefore perhaps more likely to supply us with water. Mr. Carmichael and I ascended the range, and found it to be 900 feet from its base; but in all its gullies water there was none. The view from the summit was just such as I have described before - an ocean of scrubs, with isolated hills or ranges appearing like islands in most directions. Our horses had been already twenty-four hours without water. I wanted to reach the far range to the west, but it was useless to push all the pack-horses farther into such an ocean of scrubs, as our rate of progress in them was so terribly slow. I decided to return to the small supply I had left as a reserve, and go myself to the far range, which was yet some thirty miles away. The country southward seemed to have been more recently visited by the natives than upon our line of march, which perhaps was not to be wondered at, as what could they get to live on out of such a region as we had got into? Probably forty or fifty miles to the south, over the tops of some low ridges, we saw the ascending smoke of spinifex fires, still attended to by the natives; and in the neighbourhood, no doubt, they had some watering places. On our retreat we travelled round the northern face of the hills, upon whose south side we had arrived, in hopes of finding some place having water, where I might form a depot for a few days. By night we could find none, and had to encamp without, either for ourselves or our horses.

The following day seemed foredoomed to be unlucky; it really appeared as though everything must go wrong by a natural law. In the first place, while making a hobble peg, while Carmichael and Robinson were away after the horses, the little piece of wood slipped out of my hand, and the sharp blade of the knife went through the top and nail of my third finger and stuck in the end of my thumb. The cut bled profusely, and it took me till the horses came to sew my mutilated digits up. It was late when we left this waterless spot. As there was a hill with a prepossessing gorge, I left Carmichael and Robinson to bring the horses on, and rode off to see if I could find water there. Though I rode and walked in gullies and gorges, no water was to be found. I then made down to where the horses should have passed along, and found some of them standing with their packs on, in a small bit of open ground, surrounded by dense scrubs, which by chance I came to, and nobody near. I called and waited, and at last Mr. Carmichael came and told me that when he and Robinson debouched with the horses on this little open space, they found that two of the animals were missing, and that Robinson had gone to pick up their tracks. The horse carrying my papers and instruments was one of the truants. Robinson soon returned, not having found the track. Neither of them could tell when they saw the horses last. I sent Mr. Carmichael to another hill two or three miles away, that we had passed, but not inspected yesterday, to search for water, while Robinson and I looked for the missing horses. And lest any more should retreat during our absence, we tied them up in two mobs. Robinson tied his lot up near a small rock. We then separately made sweeps round, returning to the horses on the opposite side, without success. We then went again in company, and again on opposite sides singly, but neither tracks nor horses could be found. Five hours had now elapsed since I first heard of their absence. I determined to make one more circuit beyond any we had already taken, so as to include the spot we had camped at; this occupied a couple of hours.

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